


Perfection Through Silence

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-10
Updated: 2005-03-10
Packaged: 2019-05-15 14:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14792060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: She doesn't care what anyone says, the east coast wind was harsher.





	Perfection Through Silence

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Perfection Through Silence**

**by: Taylor**

**Pairing(s):** CJ/Toby  
**Rating:** YTEEN  
**Disclaimer:** Characters are not mine, except for the losing congressman from Delaware.  
**Summary:** She doesn't care what anyone says, the east coast wind was harsher.  
**Author's Note:** Title taken from back of a sweatshirt, and general feel taken from my late to the bandwagon Coldplay love. 

The next morning, she rises, too early for the time she went to bed; but the first of what will be many cups of coffee lifts the fog of sleep off of her. CJ breaks off a corner of her granola bar as she hurries out the door. As she finishes off the steps with the energy of caffeine and daybreak, she looks up for a second. Through the budding leaves, the spring sun beams, looking twenty years younger. 

= 

Claudia Jean felt quite like Dorothy. She even noticed that her shoes, the ones she had thrown on that morning after she was called, were bright red. She sat upright in a squishy chair, waiting for a sign. Anything really, she hoped. Two weeks ago, she was offered a job on the staff of a congressman from Delaware, shooting to be a senator. She was completely confident, until the point where she walked into the office and found no one would help her. All kinds of people, dressed in blacks and greys, ran around like pollinating bees, not paying her any notice. CJ tapped her fingers against each other and searched around the room. In the corner was a squishy leathery brown couch that matched her chair. He sat on it, rubbing his temples with one hand and doodling on his legal pad. 

CJ got up and found her own spot on the couch. 

“ My name’s CJ Cregg. I’m here to help.” 

“Toby Ziegler. We need it.” 

She figured she had found her cowardly lion. 

= 

She has faith, CJ reminds herself, in them. Will’s on his way back from Wyoming. The egg balanced at midnight. Toby doesn’t know it, but she’s always had faith in him. Maybe she will tell him. Maybe she can only keep her faith silently. 

= 

She doesn’t care what anyone says, the east coast wind was harsher. You couldn’t feel the ocean breezes in New Hampshire or Dayton. But in Delaware, the ocean state, a constant breeze hurried around as a current of air floating between them, sometimes making her and Toby float together. It’s her first time working for a politician, it feels like his eighty-second. The first thing she noticed, as he talked that first night, was his voice. It didn’t match with his face, still relatively young then. He could proclaim from the rooftops, and then whisper in deep tones that sounded something closer to silence. Unconsciously, he kept her with him, mentored her in the turns of phrases unique to politics. What can’t and what must be said. Two weeks later, (it had been four weeks since she got the call-everything comes in even numbers for her) people started to talk. In small circles, when they were drunk enough, and only because they all had grown so fond of her, could they talk. 

She also learned that there’s certain things that you don’t say to Toby, and “I love you” is one of them. Toby, whose job is words, chooses to show it instead, when she argues with another staffer about something trivial that she just can’t let go of. It had been the longest weeks of her life. He interrupted their shouting match, firmly led her to an unoccupied room and kissed her. 

“It’s not the end of the world, you know.” And he did that half-smile. She wanted to kill him, but ended up kissing him back. It was a fine trade off. 

She learned fast that night. 

= 

Congressman Stepney was speaking. Toby’s words of course, but no one knew that then. He spoke in front of a podium, placed awkwardly on a beach in Dover. As the wind and the applause roared over the last words of the speech, CJ caught Toby’s eye on the other side of the sand. She smiled a little in approval. He winked at her because he knew how she liked the wind threw her hair about. He also knew that they weren’t going to win, but he didn’t bother to mention it to her. Because when you’re the loser, everyone goes straight home. He didn’t want to tell her that just yet. 

Everyone was going home soon, but CJ didn’t go back home. Not to Dayton or to Berkeley, but where she was offered the next job. It wasn’t exactly exhorberent, but it was comfortable, somewhere to start. Nervously she asked him to come, to where a different breeze blew. He never even had to say a word. He had to stay there, to fight the battles he would not win. What he didn’t realize then, was that his army was useless without her. 

And when he wasn’t there, in that comfortable apartment for her comfortable job, she was still looking for him. 

= 

“Morning, Carol.” she can’t help but toss her hair back. She remembers having a different life once, but being the same person. It is one of the infinite fractions of her life, that start in each second and end moments or years later. She can feel them passing instantly through the relative silence of her office. 

She barely sits down after dropping her bag on the floor when Toby is in the doorway, leaning his head against the doorframe and crossing his feet on the floor so he is somewhat diagonal with the floor. 

“Toby?” Half-question, half response. 

“How’s it going CJ?” 

“Good.” she answers automatically. “What’s going on?” 

“Just saying hi.” 

“Okay...Thanks. Hi.” 

He stares for a second more, which is enough to see him passing it all through his mind. He turns toward the hallway. She watches him take a couple steps, before remembering what she had to say. 

“The egg balanced.” 

Toby’s calm face is now laced with amusement. “Really? And look, the world didn’t end.” 

= 

fin. 


End file.
